Character-driven and Story-centered Podcast
Ross gives us the lowdown on the actual play podcast Dice For Brains. If you are into RPGs and Star Wars, this is a podcast you need to take note of.
When did you begin playing RPGs?
I was fortunate enough to have one of “those” older cousins. In the very early 90’s (at the tail end of the satanic panic), my cousin gave me a bunch of his Advanced D&D 2nd edition books. I was a fan of early Nintendo RPGs and board games. My cousin saw an overlap and gave me the Player’s Guide, DM guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Unearthed Arcana… I should not remember this as well as I do, but I recall not putting those books down until I had read every one cover to cover.
I went to a book store in a mall (like Walden books or something) and purchased dice… I can’t recall if they were official D&D dice, but there was a dragon on the package. I still have two of the original six dice from that set. After I had the tools, it was just a matter of finding a few school friends that would give it a try. Getting them to the table involved lying, sneaking, and general skulduggery of course, as some parents of pre-teens bought into the satanic panic a little harder than others.
What is Dice For Brains?
Dice For Brains is an actual play podcast focused on story and character development in serialized season structure. We aim to produce a show that is representative of what you find at game tables, while illustrating the benefits of player diversity to story and game play. We are currently telling a Star Wars trilogy story that is set in the Force and Destiny core book.
We also wanted to bring a brand new player into the hobby and present her journey from first-timer to scene-driver, in order to prove (to the world, I guess) that it is possible AND your game can be better for it. Ideally, new players and veteran players can learn and be inspired for their own games through the show.
Why did you start an actual play RPG podcast?
Intersecting paths, really. I have been playing tabletop RPGs for a long time. I have also been involved in theater and video game production for a while. I fell in love with podcasts and the modern radio drama, not really for the shows themselves but rather, this return to a Rockwell-ian, RKO-esque method of storytelling. I listened to Nerd Poker, plus a few other actual plays and I enjoyed them, but that always struck me as comedy shows. Even the shows I really liked seemed to be a little shallow in terms of story development.
I’m also a complainer. I’m a little exhausted seeing a stagnation of diversity in the “friendly local game store” culture I’ve been exposed to. I would lament about how much better the hobby could be with a little more inclusion, but really, I just needed to try to do something about it. I don’t expect the show to shatter the norm or anything, but I can stomach my own complaints a little better with some action behind it.
One night, about a year ago, my fiancée and I were sitting on the couch, surrounded by televisions, computers, video games, etc., and with all the modern entertainment possibilities, we were huddled together, in the mostly dark, listening to an episode of The Black Tapes. The whole thing clicked together right then for me. I had the thought that I could intersect these two styles and present something I found to be underrepresented in the “actual play market.” I then set out figuring out how to podcast. After six to eight months of research, I started putting everything together and we released the first episodes before the end of 2015.
Why did you choose Fantasy Flight's Star Wars?
One of the fun things about working on this show are all the different hats I get to wear. I bring this up now because each hat/job has a pretty different answer.
The GM in me is in love with FFG’s narrative dice system. One of the things that annoy me about “traditional” tabletop games is when everything is a “pass/fail” state. This system notches that aspect past degrees of success/failure up to a new level of multi state result occurrence. The fact that I can get a “critical failure”, still succeed at the check, plus have a situational boost to my team and an environmental negative to myself is amazing. The best side effect is the whole table is involved in each roll. You never wait for your turn once the dice come out, everyone is contributing ideas to the result interpretation.
The Producer in me knows that apart from D&D/Pathfinder FFGs, the Star Wars RPG has about the most consistent user base and is one of the few games to have over a 10% market share. In terms of “not D&D/Pathfinder”, this is one of the most popular games, if not the most popular game.
The Director in me knew I was bringing in a brand new player and I had to choose a “meta-story” the player would be familiar with. The new player would have enough to learn without having to worry about the story setting as well. Star Wars is one of the few games on the market that has enough appeal outside tabletop gaming for most people to be familiar with.
As a storyteller, I think Star Wars works incredibly well with a very specific structure. Without going into a lot of detail, I did not feel that there was an actual play podcast that really took advantage of the Star Wars story framework. I wanted to try structuring it similarly to the Star Wars film/TV/comic content with strong focus on the black-and-white, “hero’s journey” style of storytelling. Its ending up much more grey than black-and-white, but thats the way the story wanted to be told I guess.
How does recording change your GM prep? Does it affect player dynamics?
In terms of GM prep, it does not change much for me. In general, I am in the camp of improvisational GM. I do not spend time plotting out a story by beats. I put together a loose three-act structure (based around intentions, not specifics) and build a bank of modular NPC and location based components that I can pull from on the fly. I know what I want to happen and I know what I hope will happen, and I just try to steer the game into an organic landing point somewhere between them. The one major difference in terms of play is the self-imposed time limit. I want to present the show in an episodic format, so I must have a hard end to each season and to each story. We record a season in roughly six sessions, so the game flow lands in between a one-shot and a campaign. It was difficult to do, but the time limit helped produce an urgency that would not otherwise be present if I ran the Star Wars story as a typical campaign. The best part for me as a GM is the editing process. It allows me to have near perfect recollection of previous sessions, which works very well with my improvisational style.
The player dynamics, on the other hand, are drastically different. The one key difference between the show and a game session is the audience. When playing normally, you are trying to have fun and entertain the people at the table. When you play for an actual play podcast, you are trying to entertain thousands of people who are not present at your table. Entertaining yourself becomes secondary to this goal and there are elements of work to it that are not present in play sessions. I find the players are more supportive of each other as performers and players. They are conscious of things like motivations and emotional states because the desire to entertain others is primary. I would say it makes better players and better group dynamics but I am very biased. All I know is this is some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing games.
What does the future hold for Dice For Brains?
In the short term, we have the season 3 starting up on July 3rd and we'll be concluding the Intermission: Death Star story line next week. David Wright (who plays Xen Ma’lak) is running a short adventure leading up to season 3. This will be the final installment of the Kido Trilogy. Star Wars just works best in threes and it will be very exciting to see what happens to these force-sensitive characters by the end of it all.
Season 4 and beyond is kind of wide open at this point. We did not intend for this to be a Star Wars actual play, but after the fan response sticking with this amazing system seems like a tenable idea. It’s really going to be up to the listeners at the end of the day, we will play whatever they want to hear as long as they keep bringing new players to their tables.
We will be attending a few cons this year as well as have a bunch of extended content coming out soon. I don’t want to give any of it away, but I have seen some of it already and it’s amazing.
How can people listen to current episodes?
The website has all the latest episode and a bunch of other goodies: http://diceforbrains.com/
We can be found in almost all podcast platforms including itunes and google play music. And of course you can find us on Facebook and Google+ or on twitter @diceforbrains.